Archive | March 2016

Regine sat uncomfortably on Cya’s rather-comfortable couch. She had brought papers; she ignored them. Instead, she cleared her throat. “You two have had several children together over a large span of years. This makes you not quite unique but very rare, not only among Addergoole graduates but among Ellehemaei couples in general. There are some emerging genetic theories about children born to Ellehemai early in their life vs. after a century or more of life, and your children…” Luke had told her not to do it. Mike, on the other hand, had advised her. Do not say test subjects. “If I could study their DNA, I might be able to better pursue these theories.”

Cya coughed. “Most of our children are Adults. You’ll have to ask them yourself — which I’m sure you knew. So I imagine you’re coming to ask about Tama.”

“Ljótama, yes. Although,” Regine cleared her throat, “if you would be willing to put in a good word for me with Viðrou, and possibly with Kouveig, it might make them more willing to speak with me.”

It looked as if Cya was trying hard not to laugh. She coughed again instead and nodded, at least trying to look solemn. “If we can reach an accord, it can include me encouraging — those two in specific?”

“I don’t expect you’d be willing to encourage all your children to cooperate with me. I’ve met both Viðrou and Kouveig, and as your first and third of five, they make for convenient data points,” Regine explained. She noted that Cya had not at any point numbered her children. She wondered if she’d given away too much information by admitting she knew the number.

Or if she was wrong about the number. Cya might be another step ahead of her in this case. It seemed to happen when Regine least expected it, especially in the last fifty years.

Either way, Cya was smirking. “Those two specifically. It’s possible you’d find one of the others more cooperative, but we do not tend to raise compliant children.”

“I can’t imagine you would.” Regine ahem’ed. “Nor was that my experience when your children, or your grandchildren, were in school.”

“I can’t imagine it would have been,” Cya echoed back at her, smiling. “So. You want a genetic sample from — or a genetic study of — Ljótama, and help coordinating such from two of our sons, as well.”

Regine nodded slowly. “Yes. Having access to such would allow me to delve deeper into the study of Ellehemaei genetics..”

“Which, as we all know, is your great love. Of course.” Cya’s interruption was dismissive, but Regine did not allow herself to show any irritation or anger. This data would be more than a little bit useful to her. It was worth a bit of irritation. “All right.” Cya leaned forward. “I’m willing to agree to this, under a couple conditions.”

“Of course. What are your conditions?”

Cya leaned back in her seat. Regine noted that her hand settled on Leo’s back possessively. “I want a ‘get out of jail free’ card for every single one of our descendants to attend Addergoole, from now until the school closes its doors permanently.”

Part Three: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1091513.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082751.html. You can comment here or there.

When Cya and Leofric’s fifth child together — their seventh in total — was a student at Doomsday, Regine finally swallowed her pride enough to visit and ask a favor.

The child — a daughter, Ljótama — was in her fourth year at Doomsday Academy, in a cy’ree Regine’s informant insisted on calling “cy’Goldie”, and proficient already in Hugr, Intinn, Jasfe, and Idu — her parents’ child, it seemed.

But weren’t they all? Regine had begun inserting informants in the school after Leo and Cya’s last child had graduated, when the pair left the academy in capable hands that were not their own, but she’d had informants in Cloverleaf for much longer, and everything said that their children were capable, a little bit wild, headstrong, and powerful: children of Boom all the way through.

Regine kept that in mind as she knocked on Cynara’s door. These were, as Luke had been pointing out to her for over half a century, not children anymore. Their children, the older ones, were powerful enough to be demigods in their own right — Viðrou in his forest, Yoshi and Sigruko wherever their travels took them.

As Mike liked to point out, both parents and children had been using their powers actively, in life-and-death situations, far more in recent decades than Regine had.

She did not want to anger these people.

She knocked politely.

Leofric answered the door, shirtless and apparently completely comfortable with it. His face did something interesting as he saw her, a twitch of the lips and a raised eyebrow, before he turned — partially, Regine noted, not turning his back on her. “Cya? Director Avonmorea is here.”

Regine did not miss the implied insult. She kept a polite smile on her face as Cya walked over. She might have caught them at a bad time — Cya was wearing what looked to be one of Leo’s kimono, casually belted, and apparently with no other clothing. And she was frowning.

“Lady of the Lake, if you mean me and mine no harm today and on this trip to Cloverleaf, please enter.”

Regine found her eyebrows going up, although she knew better. She stepped inside, not bothering with pleasantries. If Cya hadn’t wanted her to come in, she would have sent her away. “Red Doomsday. Lightning Blade… oro’Doomsday.” He was, after all, still wearing Cya’s collar. “I came…” Regine bowed carefully. “I came to ask a favor of you.”

Cya smirked. It was an unpleasant expression, but Regine did her best not to react to it. “You might as well come sit down, then. I imagine this will be interesting.”

Just as a general timeline: Mai (their 2nd child) was a child when Cloverleaf was built. Their next child, Kovi, was an adult by the time Cya Kept Leo. The next child came soonish after, and Tama about 30 years after that child.

Part II: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082751.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1082356.html. You can comment here or there.

Written to 2 prompst from this page, which are the bold-italiced sections of this ficlet

Yes, I owned the “A” warehouse. “Owned,” you see, because while I still hold the deed to the property, the property itself is gone, and where it’s fallen, I don’t think there’s anyone who cares about things like deeds.

This is a story about infamy, marriage, and being an arch-mage, although I’m forced to admit that the arch-mage part is still in the future – in the hopeful, potential future at that.

The infamy part, unfortunately, is very much in the “now,” and in all potential futures available from here, too. And the marriage – well, here’s fingers crossed and hats off to Marvipost and Tannibaun that that doesn’t turn out to be in the past.

But you were asking about “A” warehouse. Down in the lettered streets, which are now quite a bit more “down” than “streets”, may Tannibaun and Ornigzar have mercy on the souls of those poor denizens. I owned it. I kept it stocked. I understand the regulations, maybe better than most people. I helped write half those regulations, after all – and now we get back to the infamy part.

Now I see that you recognize me. I’m told my face isn’t done justice by those portraits, and I’ve never been the public one in our marriage.

But I owned the “A” warehouse – and the “C” and “F” as well. And I stoked them all. What the inhabitants of the belowland will be doing with them, now that the entire sector has fallen, I do not know. What they will do to any survivors, I can only guess. I know only that they are gone, may Marvipost and Ornigzar forgive me.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1081812.html. You can comment here or there.

When Cya went to one of the downtown bars with Leo, she knew that she could expect a certain amount of flirtation in varying degrees of heavy-handedness. Today was no different – some smooth pick-up lines and some sad, some who wanted to sleep with power and some who thought she looked cute, some who thought Leo looked cute and some who thought they were dangerous in an interesting way.

And then one drunken guy told her he could help her out. “I’m good friends with the Mayor, you know. If you need a job, I can help you.”

She looked him over for a minute while the gathered crowd around them fell silent. He was earnest and pleased with himself – and she’d never met him before.

“Would someone please tell him?” She raised her voice so it carried.

One of the off-duty city guards, sounding as if he was trying not to laugh, cleared his throat. “What would you like us to tell him, Madam Mayor?”

The man frowned, but he clearly hadn’t gotten it yet. Cya sighed. “Well, my name would be a good start.”

“Well, I hear,” Apollo offered, “that the bandits to the west call you the Red Death.”

Actually, they called her the Red-handed wielder of the Lightning Death, but since neither she nor Leo actually killed anyone, she supposed that was a moot point.

“Up north, they call you the Savior of Adamtown,” a guard offered. Cya winced. That had been a bad one – but she had, technically, saved Adamtown.

“In school,” offered a third, who had been a student of Doomsday until just a year ago, “mostly they call you Prince Red.”

That one, she hadn’t known. And now her would-be suitor was beginning to get the point. He was turning pale. “Madame Mayor?” He glared at her. “No, you’re way too young. The mayor’s been here for fifty years!”

“I.. I promise,” he stammered. From the way the air didn’t twist and the way he was willing to make a promise that quickly, Cya could tell he wasn’t fae. It didn’t matter. She smiled so all her sharp mink teeth showed.

“Good boy. Now go leave the Mayor alone. I want to flirt with someone less unwise.”

AS he hurried off, she began to wonder if it was time for a new city.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1081439.html. You can comment here or there.

Cya leaned over a list of names with her youngest school-aged descendant. He’d brought the list home home from his first year at Addergoole, every classmate in his year and the two years above him.

She let her finger pause over three names. “These three are not related to you at all, even remotely. And this one is also not related to any of the Boom brood. These two are pretty far distant, but sticking to the ones that aren’t descended from Boom is better.”

Her (great-great-so-many-greats)-grandson glanced over at her. “Why?”

“Oh,” Red Doomsday smiled, “I’m working on a thing. It might not help you, but it’ll help your kids.”

Her grandson – one of Yoshi’s line, with a disturbing resemblance to Yoshi’s father – smiled cautiously. “I trust you. So, these three?”

Trust. Cya did another Find on the list. “This one’s the best. The safest.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1081176.html. You can comment here or there.

So way back here, I said I wanted to get into the heads of two non-Addergoole side characters.

I asked Cal to pick a setting, and Cal picked Stranded. Which doesn’t have a LOT of background characters.

So we have Melinda, who is dating Summer and Bishop.

Melinda woke up early.

She usually did – Summer liked to sleep as if she’d been running marathons one after another, and Bishop didn’t like to go to bed until practically sunrise. That meant Summer got the middle and Bishop got the outside, and Mellie slipped out of bed while the sun was still just thinking about getting up itself.

She snuck out of the bedroom on bare feet, grabbing a robe as she went. Their roommates wouldn’t be up for another hour or two either, which meant that she had the place to herself, just for a bit.

She settled on the back porch with her History of the Americas textbook, a big mug of tea, and her favorite highlighters. Truth be told, this was half of what she liked about waking up early: this was her time, to be shared with nobody.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1080899.html. You can comment here or there.

The science of psychometry was still frowned upon by many of Tekemuzh’s colleagues, he knew. They said it was folly and superstition; they said that it was a misuse of the aether if it worked at all, and certainly it wouldn’t really work. Usually, they stopped after he managed to make his “parlour tricks” reveal something about them they would have rather he hadn’t said.

He could have done without Aetherist Ovanobina calling him in to this particular task, however. Bones upon bones upon bones… and the silver vein that had led the miners to this dig.

“Tell us.” Ovanobina pulled Tekemuzh to the first in a long row of skeletons. “I want to know how they died.”

“Well,” Tekemuzh coughed, “there’s the problem, of course, that if they didn’t die with any major trauma or any surge of aeth…” He trailed off as his fingers brushed the first skeleton. “Oh. Oh by the Three.”

He sat back, trying to keep the contents of his stomach where they belonged. She had bled out, slowly and in pain, next to the still-warm corpse of her sister. She had died, bleeding aether into the very rock. “I think…” Tekemuzh swallowed and tried again. “I think it was a ritual.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1080795.html. You can comment here or there.

Tropical life was weird. Austin was on the building crew, and so he and William and Mable had gotten first dibs on their choice of house.

They’d chosen a shelter on what they were now calling Auswilma Island, an acre-and-a-bit hilly, wooded lot with steep drops to the water on three sides and a nice casual hill down on the side immediately opposite The Big Island. They got there first, so even though they’d have to share it with two or three other houses – two were built, and there was room for a third – they claimed naming rights.

But owning their own island wasn’t the weirdest part, any more than swimming the narrow channel between Auswilma and Big Islands twice a day to get to ‘work’ was, or bedding down to sleep while the weather was so warm they couldn’t stand to touch each other for more than a few minutes.

Weirdest was the wildlife, mainly flighted animals, and the way a couple of them seemed to latch onto each colonist and follow them around. Austin’s were a blue-and-marmalade-patterned thing the size of his hands together and a dark-buff-colored thing whose wingspan was bigger than Austin’s. At night, they roosted on the roof of the house, his and William’s red-and-blue pair and Mable’s trio of mostly-black ones. During the day, they followed them around.

When the big one dove into the water next to Austin and pulled out an eel-thing twice his size, Austin was suddenly very grateful indeed for their company.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1080400.html. You can comment here or there.